Upright
Raw physical force and health. Untamed vitality — the strength that exists before anyone shapes it.
Rune 2 of 24 · Freyr's Aett
ᚢ Uruz
Uruz is rune 2 of the 24 in the Elder Futhark, in Freyr's Aett, and carries the sound U. It means “Aurochs, wild strength”. Upright: Raw physical force and health. Untamed vitality — the strength that exists before anyone shapes it. Reversed: Strength misapplied, or weakness and illness. Force used where restraint was wanted. That reading exists for 17 of the 24 runes; the other 7 are symmetrical or read upright only.
Reversed
Strength misapplied, or weakness and illness. Force used where restraint was wanted.
Position in the row2 of 24
AettFreyr's Aett
SoundU
Literal meaningAurochs, wild strength
ElementEarth
Can be reversedYes
Uruz is the 2th rune of the Elder Futhark and belongs to Freyr's Aett. Before it meant anything divinatory it was a letter, carrying the U sound.
Primary source
What the rune poem says
The aurochs is proud and has great horns; it is a very savage beast and fights with its horns, a great roamer of the moors.
— Anglo-Saxon rune poem, recorded around the 8th–10th century
Where the rune poems come from and why the medieval reading is often blunter than the modern one — explained once on the main page.
Calculated
Uruz by the numbers
Position in the row
2 of 24
Odds of drawing it
1 in 24 · 4.17%
Rune of the day in 2026
16 times · 4.38%
Reversed on those days
25%
Can be reversed
Yes
Of the 24 runes, only 17 have a reversed reading — 71% of the row. Four are symmetrical and cannot be turned over at all, and 3 more are conventionally read upright only.
The rune-of-the-day figures are exact rather than estimated. Our daily draw is derived from the date, so the whole year can be computed — which a site with a random draw cannot do.
Days it falls in 2026: 2 Jan, 16 Jan, 3 Feb, 8 Feb, 20 Feb, 5 Mar, 1 Apr, 7 May
What happened to it
Uruz after the Elder Futhark
In the Younger Futhark
Survived as úr, but the meaning shifted from aurochs to drizzle or slag — the animal was extinct in Scandinavia by then.
Worth knowing
The aurochs itself died out in 1627; the rune outlived the beast it named.
Around 800 CE the 24-rune Elder Futhark contracted to the 16-rune Younger Futhark — fewer symbols for more sounds, at exactly the point the language was growing more complex. Eight runes were dropped outright. Which ones survived, and how they changed, is the closest thing to a documented history these symbols have.
Traditional associations
Pronounced
OO-rooz
Deity
Thor
Tree
Birch
Element
Earth
Uruz sits in Freyr's Aett, position 2 of the row, and carries the U sound. Its literal meaning is aurochs, wild strength — which is where every later reading of it starts.
The poem above is a source; this table is twentieth-century reconstruction.